General Consumer Awareness of SEM & SEO

Which of the following have you heard of?

More people have heard of paid search / AdWords than have SEO / link building. One of the big issues with this question is that since it had numerous check boxes it had a lower response rate (roughly 10% vs an average of closer to 16% to 18%) & took longer for the answers to come in. In the future I can see Google adding quality score styled factors to quizes where pricing is in part based on response rate & they charge premiums for quicker responses. Anyhow, on to the results…

Vote

All (1501)

Pay Per Click

45.8% (+2.5 / -2.5)

AdWords

32.7% (+2.4 / -2.3)

SEO

21.3% (+2.1 / -2.0)

Link Building

15.9% (+1.9 / -1.8)

Ad Retargeting

14.9% (+1.9 / -1.7)

Men tend to have slightly greater awareness of SEO than women. That sort of makes sense given that most SEO conferences are heavily dominated by male attendees.

Vote

Men (755)

Women (543)

Gender unknown (203)

Pay Per Click

45.2% (+3.6 / -3.5)

45.7% (+4.2 / -4.1)

48.3% (+6.8 / -6.8)

AdWords

33.4% (+3.4 / -3.3)

32.2% (+4.0 / -3.8)

31.5% (+6.7 / -6.0)

SEO

24.8% (+3.2 / -2.9)

18.6% (+3.5 / -3.0)

15.3% (+5.6 / -4.3)

Link Building

18.9% (+2.9 / -2.6)

12.2% (+3.0 / -2.5)

14.3% (+5.5 / -4.2)

Ad Retargeting

16.4% (+2.8 / -2.5)

13.1% (+3.1 / -2.6)

13.8% (+5.4 / -4.1)

People in the 25 to 34 age range tend to be more aware of these terms than other age groups.

Vote

18-24 year-olds (229)

25-34 year-olds (316)

35-44 year-olds (162)

45-54 year-olds (227)

55-64 year-olds (182)

65+ year-olds (99)

Pay Per Click

30.1% (+6.2 / -5.6)

50.3% (+5.5 / -5.5)

48.8% (+7.6 / -7.6)

44.9% (+6.5 / -6.3)

51.1% (+7.2 / -7.2)

51.5% (+9.6 / -9.7)

AdWords

37.1% (+6.4 / -6.0)

40.5% (+5.5 / -5.3)

32.7% (+7.6 / -6.8)

33.0% (+6.4 / -5.8)

22.0% (+6.6 / -5.4)

20.2% (+9.0 / -6.7)

SEO

21.4% (+5.8 / -4.8)

32.6% (+5.4 / -4.9)

29.6% (+7.4 / -6.5)

14.1% (+5.1 / -3.9)

13.2% (+5.7 / -4.2)

18.2% (+8.7 / -6.4)

Link Building

17.0% (+5.4 / -4.3)

17.4% (+4.6 / -3.8)

16.0% (+6.4 / -4.9)

15.9% (+5.3 / -4.2)

15.4% (+6.0 / -4.5)

12.1% (+7.9 / -5.0)

Ad Retargeting

12.2% (+4.9 / -3.6)

16.1% (+4.5 / -3.6)

17.3% (+6.6 / -5.0)

18.9% (+5.6 / -4.6)

11.0% (+5.4 / -3.8)

16.2% (+8.5 / -6.0)

The map is sort of all over the map…there are no easily definable regional patterns.

Vote

The US Midwest (320)

The US Northeast (415)

The US South (432)

The US West (316)

Pay Per Click

43.8% (+5.5 / -5.3)

47.5% (+4.8 / -4.8)

43.1% (+4.7 / -4.6)

48.7% (+5.5 / -5.5)

AdWords

33.1% (+5.3 / -4.9)

30.6% (+4.6 / -4.2)

33.1% (+4.6 / -4.3)

34.5% (+5.4 / -5.0)

SEO

18.1% (+4.6 / -3.8)

24.3% (+4.4 / -3.9)

19.2% (+4.0 / -3.4)

22.2% (+4.9 / -4.2)

Link Building

15.3% (+4.4 / -3.5)

13.5% (+3.6 / -3.0)

18.5% (+3.9 / -3.4)

16.1% (+4.5 / -3.6)

Ad Retargeting

13.8% (+4.2 / -3.3)

14.2% (+3.7 / -3.0)

17.1% (+3.8 / -3.3)

13.6% (+4.2 / -3.3)

People in urban areas tend to be more aware of SEM terms than rural people are. This is not particularly surprising since in smaller towns word of mouth and word around the town goes a long way (I used to live in a town of 1200 people) and in cities there is a lot more options than any one person can try & there is far greater noise/competition in the marketplace, both from a consumer and business perspective.

The “unknown” density category only had 32 total responses, so that is just noise.

Vote

Urban areas (793)

Rural areas (113)

Suburban areas (563)

Urban Density unknown (32)

Pay Per Click

45.4% (+3.5 / -3.4)

38.9% (+9.2 / -8.5)

47.8% (+4.1 / -4.1)

43.8% (+16.9 / -15.6)

AdWords

35.6% (+3.4 / -3.3)

27.4% (+8.9 / -7.4)

29.3% (+3.9 / -3.6)

40.6% (+17.1 / -15.1)

SEO

24.7% (+3.1 / -2.9)

15.9% (+7.8 / -5.6)

16.9% (+3.3 / -2.9)

31.2% (+17.3 / -13.3)

Link Building

15.5% (+2.7 / -2.4)

17.7% (+8.1 / -5.9)

16.2% (+3.3 / -2.8)

12.5% (+15.6 / -7.5)

Ad Retargeting

14.6% (+2.6 / -2.3)

19.5% (+8.3 / -6.2)

13.3% (+3.1 / -2.6)

31.2% (+17.3 / -13.3)

There are not many clear patterns among income (that surprises me as I would have thought there was a strong correlation). However, once again, the data is skewed to exclude most people with higher incomes, as there was only 1 response at > $ 150,000 / year.